The Perfect Soldier (43 page)

‘Mrs Jordan?’

‘Yes?’

‘The Chargé would like a word. Someone will be over to collect you.’

Molly thanked him, stepping outside again. Clouds were towering over the river, heavy with rain, and gusts of wind were stirring the trees along the Avenue des Trois. Molly bent to the Mercedes, telling Rademeyer that he might have to wait a while. The despair she’d felt overnight had gone. With the promise of a ticket home had come an extraordinary calmness. She’d been tested and she’d survived. She owed apologies to no one.

A young man from the embassy appeared in the road, inviting her into the compound. The embassy was surrounded by tall walls topped with razor wire. Inside, there were a handful of Barratt-style houses and a swimming pool. Range Rovers occupied the parking spaces, and there were a couple of Zodiac inflatables strapped to launch trailers. Molly looked at the scene as they made for the main door, amused. Forget the flame trees and the trellis of bougainvillaea and she might have been back on some estate in the Home Counties, turning up for midday drinks.

The Chargé d’Affaires turned out to be a woman in her forties, severely dressed in a neat two-piece suit. Her hair was drawn back from her face in a tight bun and she wore a look of almost permanent impatience. When Molly sat down in front of the desk, she didn’t bother with small talk. She had a telex in front of her, key phrases ringed in red.

‘I’ve been in touch with Luanda,’ she said at once. ‘They’re not best pleased.’

‘I’m sure.’ Molly smiled. ‘Have I broken any laws?’

‘That’s hardly the point. As I understand it, they advised you not to go inland. Advice you chose to ignore.’

‘Yes.’

‘Not once but twice.’

‘Yes.’

‘And on both occasions you went to …’ She frowned, her eyes returning to the telex.

‘Muengo,’ Molly said. ‘My son’s buried there.’

The woman nodded, wrong-footed for a moment, and Molly found herself studying a small, framed photo on the desk. It showed the Chargé perched on a five-bar gate. She was wearing a green anorak and a stout pair of boots. Beside her, bent against the wind, was a fit-looking man in his sixties.

‘You take risks,’ Molly pointed out, ‘when you lose someone close, someone you love.’

‘That’s hardly the issue, Mrs Jordan. This isn’t Stow-on-the-Wold.’

‘Does that make a difference?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid it does.’ She leaned back in the chair, softening a little. ‘I’m sorry about your son. We all are. But life can be dangerous out here. Angola’s in a state of war. People die.’ She shrugged. ‘It happens all the time. We do what we can, of course, but it’s never easy.’

‘What isn’t?’

‘Getting it through to people like yourself.’

‘You think I should have stayed at home?’

‘I think you should have stayed in Luanda, like we suggested. Flying out in the first place was obviously your decision. It’s a free world. But after that …’ she sighed, ‘it might have paid you to listen.’

Molly leaned forward adjusting the hem of her dress. She couldn’t remember when she’d last felt so angry. What could this woman possibly know about James? How dare she condense the last two weeks into a lecture about travel arrangements?

‘I went to Muengo to find out about my son,’ she said softly. ‘I wanted to know how he died.’

‘I understood your son stepped on a mine.’

‘He did.’

‘Then perhaps he should have listened, too. Most aid workers are more careful. We get very few casualties.’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘It isn’t?’

‘No.’ Molly shook her head, colouring now. ‘My son didn’t simply die. He was killed. Someone killed him. That’s why I came to Africa. That’s the question I wanted answered.’

‘It was a mine,’ the Chargé said again, ‘he stepped on a mine.’

‘Of course he did. But mines are put there. They’re not part of the landscape. They don’t grow. They’re made by somebody. Sold by somebody. Bought by somebody. Two weeks ago, I didn’t know that. Now I do.’

‘And does it help? Knowing that?’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘Why?’

‘Because …’ Molly stopped, looking at the photograph on the desk again. ‘It’s important, that’s all.’

‘Important for who? You?’

‘Others. Other mothers. Other sons.’ She nodded at the photo. ‘Even husbands.’

The Chargé looked at her a moment, as cold as ever.

‘That’s my father,’ she said at last, ‘in case you were wondering.’

‘OK,’ Molly shrugged, ‘your father, then. It makes no difference. Somebody close to you dies, you want to know why. It’s not an act of God. It’s not an earthquake or a hurricane or something. It’s man-made. Literally. Someone dies. Someone gets killed. There has to be blame. Does that make sense? Or am I being silly?’

‘Foolish. You’re being foolish.’

‘
Foolish?
To care about what happened?
Foolish?
’ Molly paused, remembering the morning in the schoolhouse, Bennie’s voice drifting in through the open window, telling her exactly the way it had been with James. ‘My son was blown up by a big mine. It tore him nearly in half. They brought his body back to Muengo. There was nowhere to keep it. He had a girlfriend. She wanted to—’

‘Please, Mrs Jordan …’

The Chargé was frowning now, embarrassed, wanting the conversation over, but Molly shook her head, refusing to let her off the hook. She’d started this conversation, for God’s sake. And now she had to listen.

‘My son did nothing wrong. In fact he was trying to find a child when it happened. He might have been headstrong but his heart was in the right place. He was trying to help. Can you understand that?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘And you’d understand how a mother would feel? Back in the UK? Getting a phone call explaining that her son was dead?’

‘It must have been awful.’

‘It was. But there are things you can do. Weeping’s not enough. You have to find out.’

‘Find out what, Mrs Jordan?’

‘Find out what happened. Find out who killed him.’

‘And you’ve got an answer? To that last question? A name?’

Molly paused, taking a deep breath, letting some of the anger subside. Then she shook her head.

‘I’d love one,’ she said quietly, ‘but it isn’t that simple, is it?’

McFaul arrived late for the midday meeting. It was ten past twelve before he made it back to Room 631. Two large Africans stood outside the door, both wearing black jumpsuits. McFaul showed them his hotel registration card and asked for Katilo. When Katilo opened the door, McFaul could smell the rich, heavy scent of cigar smoke.

He stepped inside, retrieving his bag from the guard who’d been searching it. Two men were sitting on the long crescent of sofa. One was enormous, a middle-aged man spilling out of a rumpled linen suit. He had a dark, almost Mediterranean complexion and the cigar between his pudgy fingers left circles of blue smoke as he talked animatedly to the man beside him. The latter looked a little older, a well-dressed black in his late fifties. He had a wild head of hair, beginning to grey at the edges, and when he saw McFaul he smiled.

Katilo did the introductions. The fat man’s name was Sarkis. He was a trader. He had a fine house in the mountains behind Beirut. Another in Antwerp. He came to Zaire often. He knew lots about diamonds. The other man’s name was Mr Lawrence. He was an American, a good friend of Katilo’s, a firm ally of Angola’s, a man UNITA could trust.

McFaul was already unpacking his bag, getting the camcorder ready, wondering whether Katilo had bothered to warn these two men that their conversation would be taped. The American had already got up and drawn Katilo aside, and the pair were deep in conversation on the other side of the room. It was raining hard now, the city a blur beyond the big picture windows, and McFaul saw Katilo frowning and
shaking his head, emphatic denials, listening to the American. Mr Lawrence was wearing a dark three-piece suit, exquisitely cut, and he had an almost courtly manner, using his hands a lot when he talked, sealing each point with yet another smile.

At length the two men returned, the American guiding Katilo by the elbow, the gentlest touch. Katilo looked a little crestfallen, gesturing at the low glass table in front of the sofa. For the first time, McFaul saw the diamonds. They were laid out on a square of black velvet behind the tray of coffee. Sarkis reached forward, poking the diamonds with his forefinger, selecting one of the smaller gemstones. He produced a magnifying lens and pouched it in one eye, inspecting the diamond in the light from the window.

McFaul glanced at Katilo, asking him whether he wanted him to tape. Katilo looked at the American.

‘Mr Lawrence …’ he began.

Lawrence put his hand on Katilo’s arm, taking over. He spoke in a slow southern drawl, a deep voice, beautifully modulated.

‘The colonel has told me about your film,’ he said at once. ‘It sounds an exciting project. I’d love to help you all I can but we have ourselves a problem here. You’ll appreciate these conversations …’ He gestured loosely towards the pile of diamonds. ‘It could be sensitive.’

McFaul said he’d do what everyone wanted. Katilo came up with an idea. Before the real business began McFaul would shoot the three of them just talking. That way, the audience would get to see the other side of Katilo’s work without having to share any secrets. The American was smiling again.

‘Sure,’ he said, ‘go ahead. Only leave me out.’

‘You mean that?’

‘I’m afraid I do.’

Katilo looked briefly annoyed, then shrugged. Sarkis had finished with the diamonds. He, too, was less than interested in appearing in Katilo’s video, not bothering to hide his irritation.

‘Why didn’t you mention this already?’

‘I thought it was no problem.’

‘No problem?’ Sarkis squinted up at him. ‘You kidding?’

The American sat down again, reaching for his coffee. Katilo, robbed of his video sequence, was eyeing them both, visibly frustrated. Watching him, McFaul began to sense the limits of his authority. In the bush, Katilo could play the emperor. Here, it wasn’t quite so clear-cut.

Finally, Katilo walked across to the wardrobe, telling McFaul to have the camcorder ready. McFaul did what he was told, pressing the record button as Katilo stooped to pull out a big cardboard box. He beckoned McFaul closer, opening the flaps on top of the box. Inside, nestling amongst little shells of polystyrene packing, were dozens of antipersonnel mines. Katilo selected one, weighing it in his hand for a moment or two, musing aloud about the shape of the deal. He’d come to Kinshasa for resupplies. There were friends here who would give him anything he needed. Samples were delivered to his hotel room. The rest would go straight to the airport for onward shipment.

Katilo looked up. His eyes narrowed.

‘Right, Sarkis?’

McFaul put the camcorder down, glancing round towards the sofa. Sarkis was shovelling the diamonds into a small leather bag, ignoring the question. Lawrence, the American, was staring out of the window. Katilo shrugged again, then tossed the mine to McFaul. McFaul caught it in his left hand, hearing Katilo’s low chuckle.

‘For you, my friend,’ he murmured, ‘souvenir from Kinshasa.’

McFaul took the mine back to his hotel room. It was one of the PMNs, circular, the size of an ashtray, and McFaul could tell at once from the weight that it was a dud, a demo that salesmen used to secure a contract. Soviet-made, the real thing had claimed more victims than any other mine in the world.

McFaul went to the window, gazing out. The rain had stopped again and one of the Brazzaville ferries was nosing out into the river. It lay low in the water, slightly lopsided, the decks crowded with passengers. There were more of them on the roof, a riot of colour, and gouts of greasy brown smoke from the funnel drifted away on the wind as the ferry set course for the distant smudge of Brazzaville.

McFaul looked at the mine again, fingering the ring pull on the side that armed it. He’d lifted hundreds of these in Afghanistan. There were factories all over the world turning out copies, and you could buy them by the dozen in Pakistan. He’d seen a boxful himself in the market in Miranshah. Six dollars each. No questions asked.

He went back to the bed, swamped by the memories. In Afghanistan, he’d often found the PMNs semi-exposed, protected by a summer’s growth of scrub and grass. In that situation, you were bloody careful, working slowly round the thing, using garden secateurs, snipping away the vegetation before lifting the mine out by its sides, like a surgeon removing a cyst. McFaul closed his eyes, back amongst the rocky hillsides. That’s where he’d found Mohammed, the little Afghan goat herd, the body curled amongst the rocks. That’s where his anger and his rage had first taken root.

McFaul’s hand closed around the mine. At this very moment, Katilo was probably buying thousands of the things, plus laying orders for any other mine that took his fancy. The diamonds on the table in the room downstairs would give him the pick of the stuff on the market. Type 72s. Valselas. SB-33s, Claymores. Anything he could load into Rademeyer’s Dove and fly south. More work for the surgeons. More limbless kids begging in the streets of Luanda.

McFaul sank onto the bed. He and Bennie had returned Mohammed’s body to his home village, the scruffy cluster of packed-earth dwellings on the road to Jeji. They’d wrapped the boy in a blanket and carried him down the hillside, trying to keep their footing in the loose scree. The kid was days dead, his body stiffened, the flesh eaten away where the wild dogs had been at him, and the journey had seemed endless. Afterwards in the village there were the parents to cope with. Oddly, their grief had been muted. Mines had narrowed the land, hemming them in, and they seemed to have done something similar to the people’s feelings. They were resigned. They were stoical. Their children were dying all the time. It was something you had to live with, like the implacable weather, and crop failure, and the fat Soviet helicopters that came chattering down the valley, scattering yet more mines.

McFaul rolled over, letting the PMN fall to the floor. They’d stayed the night in the village, sleeping in the Land Rover. Next morning, he’d shaken Mohammed’s father by the hand, not knowing quite what to say, the gruffest farewell. Driving back to Kabul, he’d told Bennie that simply clearing up wasn’t enough. Ridding Afghanistan of mines might take a hundred years. There had to be another way. Bennie had laughed, like he always did. The money was good. They were saving lives. What else could you do?